Are the kids alright? The protection of minors online and social media bans

All right. So, welcome to everyone who's already here to our next learning call, which is part of the DSA research network. If you're interested into the network, then please help yourself and find a link in the chat to what the corporation is doing. The learning call is part of this of his research network and it's actually an event where we take one hour to discuss certain political questions with our great experts and I'm very happy to have Jessica and Patty today. So glad that you're here for our discussion. Now uh just a few remarks um to the call. We'll be having one hour now. We'll be starting with two um minor inputs from Patty and Jessica and after that we're open for discussion. So I invite each and every one of you to hand in questions via the chat session. We'll be collecting this that uh the questions in the background and then be handing those to our panel. If you'd like to hop on stage, then you are also warmly invited to open your microphones and your cameras and come to us and discuss with us. But as you already noticed, this meeting will be recorded and we'll be uploading the event on YouTube. So for all of those who don't want to be seen, um they can just hand in their questions via the chat section. So to today's question, are the kids all right the protection of minors online and social media bans? I mean you all know that by the end of 2025 Australia had already banned under uh anyone under the age of 16 from using social media. And following this what we see is that more and more national governments begin proposing similar legislation. This even happened on the European Union level despite the fact that we have a digital service act which already includes specific measures in place to protect miners. But nevertheless, in late July this year, France became the first European Union country to vote for a ban of under 15s from accessing social media. And also the European Union Commission President Ozola Laafonda line announced plans to introduce widespread age verification for social media also for app stores, video games and other platforms. And also in Germany um they plan to ban miners under a certain age. Um this is also being discussed following a proposal from the social democratic parliamentary group makers uh in the bundist tag. So that's actually the topic we'll be touching upon today and we have many many questions. I do have many questions. You all have probably many questions to the topic. Um for example, why are so many national governments now introducing their own legislation to protect minors? Is there a specific event um that triggered this? And what does for example Australia's social media ban entail? What does it look like? Um is there anything with we can access um its effectiveness? And also the question of what risks do miners really face online? Are these risks specific to miners or do they also affect other users? So many questions uh to solve and to answer but for now I will hand over the microphone to Jessica and Patty. We have Jessica Galiser. Jessica is a senior policy researcher at interface strengthening the digital public sphere and platform regulation program. And Jessica your research focuses on the protection of miners in digital environments. And this includes mapping and analyzing current and emerging risks to miners in digital spaces and also identifying regulatory compliance requirements and gaps in existing protections. Jessica, so glad that you're here. Welcome. >> Thank you for having me. >> And Patty, Patty Leersen is a colleague uh from the cooperation project. Patty is a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Amsterdam's Institute for Information Law. And Petty, your research focuses on platform law and governance with a particular focus on questions of transparency, accountability, and data access. And as part of the digital services act observatory, you monitor the implementation and enforcement of the European Union's new regulatory framework for online platforms. So glad to have you, Patty. Welcome. And my name is Katarina. I'm Katarina Mosina. I'm also a researcher at the Home Institute for Internet and Society. I'm very interested into questions around AI and gender equality. And I feel very delighted to moderate this session today. And now we start with the input. Jessica, would you like to start? >> Sure. And just as a disclaimer, I will keep my remarks quite general uh to to start with and then we can go into more details during the the questions. So I won't really be touching upon some of the questions that you asked in the introduction. Um so first I wanted to address the actual question that's raised in the title of this learning call which is are the kids all right? um which is hard to answer without introducing some granularity of course because some some kids are right online and some others are not and that's probably a lot of in between and children who are sometimes all right and others times not. And as we know social media can be very good for children for socializing, learning or getting informed for instance in fact for enjoying some of their most basic fundamental rights. But they can also be really bad when they are exposed to harmful content, contact, and features. Um, and so cyber bullying, grooming, or the negative impacts it can have on their mental health are real. Um, and they are all very well documented now. So I I, you know, I won't be going back to to to this. Um, and this is also starting to be confirmed in courts around the world as well. Um, in the US, for instance, Meta and YouTube have been found guilty in social media addiction trials. In the UK, Meta was found as having um likely played, I quote, more than minimal role um in young Mali Russell taking her own life. She was 14 and sadly she's not an isolated case. Um so we we see that not all kids are all right online. Although this might you know be the worst case scenario but we can't ignore that it's there. Um so to answer the general question if kids were sufficiently all right and if things were not very concerning and worthy of independent research and policy debates we wouldn't be here today. Um so I just wanted to acknowledge that the the harms are real um and they are widespread and well doumented. um just so that what I will say afterwards is not interpreted as me saying you know everything is all right we shouldn't do anything um because for instance agreeing with the recent decision um by the French constitutional council and defending uh the rule of law doesn't mean we we don't care about protecting children or that we put privacy above protection or I don't know what you might hear um and in fact people who truly want to protect minors probably no better than you know trying to impose a so-called social media bans um and during the discussion we can discuss why that is uh and why I have this stance uh and what alternatives we we might have um and the second point I wanted to make um is actually a quote I came across while studying international relations a bit more than 12 years ago now uh which is a quote by Rufus Smiles who was a um a US government administrator who once said um where you stand depends on where you sit and I think it's especially true of this debate on online child protection which has become very political um which was good at first uh because when I started working on this issue seven or eight years ago it wasn't so high on the policy agenda and now it is and so I'm I'm glad it But the downside of this is that it's more and more instrumentalized by decision makers um that uh you know um care more about looking good and being reelected to put it simply uh than about designing effective solutions. Um and again the the decision by the the French Constitutional Council I think is yet another example of policy makers ignoring the the warnings and the advice of experts uh or at least some experts um and going for what seems to be like an easy fix which in fact is nor easy uh you know neither easy nor a fix um but we we can come back to to that later. Um and so where you stand depends on where you sit also means that we have to understand the conflicting arguments um that may emerge in the debate because for the people who are listening from the outside it it might get confusing and for instance although I am convinced that blanket social media bans is not the way forward I understand why to some people it might seem like a a plausible solution um If you take parents who have lost a child for instance due to exposure to some harmful um or very um you know depressing content online. I understand that from their point of view having a a blanket bam um for for some social media platforms may seem like a good idea because for them it's just you know unstandable that kids still have access to to these tools. Um so I see where they come from and I and I understand why they and also some children protection organizations put so much pressure on governments you know to to go in that direction but at the same time the I think the role of governments shouldn't be to listen to one side and and you know design solutions based on that it's also to listen to all interested parties consider all the input and balance arguments, you know, against each other and come up with a solution that actually leaves children better off. And for now, what I see is more governments and parliaments going for solutions that make parents believe that children will be better off. Um, and and to me, that's obviously not enough. Um and so just to to conclude on the introductory remarks, I would say that to me the two things that are missing in the debate today is nuance um and time. Um because it's unlike what it's portrayed often times. It's not a tick the box exercise and then we move on to the next thing or perhaps for present macron it is. Um but making sure that kids are safe online will take more than just you know a piece of legislation and and then you know it won't happen overnight. Um and so it will take time and it's I think it's it's time that people understand that and um and you know accept it uh and that we actually need to take the the time to get things right despite the the urgency of the situation. Um so I for the sake of time I will I will stop here and we can go into the details uh during the discussion. Thank you. >> Thank you so much Jessica for these many interesting thoughts on the topic. Petty would you like to go on? >> Yeah thanks uh thanks Kina and um everyone else involved in organizing this. Uh I really became interested in this debate around child protection online about half a year ago when I was invited with my co-author Yoris Hoboken to advise uh the judge ministry for the interior on this topic. Like practically every member state they were interested in preparing uh legislation in this area. Holland compared to some other countries appears to be prioritizing a more EU level approach. Um and you know in these opening remarks I won't go through everything in this report. Um, but I' I'd like to stress maybe two points that come out of it. Um, with as a starting point that on the merits of a social media ban, I I think re reasonable people can really and do disagree, right? And like Jessica pointed out, the harms are real. There seems to be increasing uh, you know, evidence and also consensus around the harmful uh, role that social media appears to play in in children's lives. Um when it comes to the social uh media ban or minimum age policy then though uh there are um still people who believe like many childh child protection uh associations that a ban might be disproportionate others that believe it is proportionate and fundamentally I think that boils down to a political judgment and not one that necessarily as experts we can you know definitively rule on. It's safe to say that many politicians do believe that the time has come. Uh but there are other points where experts can intervene I think more forcefully and the two points we do try to make in our report are uh a that we already have many laws imposing some kind of age restriction on social media and other online um services in the EU already. So that this debate is not one that starts day no from should we there be a minimum age restriction but rather what do we think of the age restrictions we have and do we think we should modify them. So these interventions are already much more marginal than we might assume. Uh and without going into details, we're talking about the DSA having rules here. The GDPR has really rather strict rules in some areas. And there's actually very good research by Jessica showing uh and and by interface for organization showing how platforms seem to be uh not complying with the GDPR on a massive scale already on the age uh restrictions imposed there. We also have the AVMSD which is currently being enforced by Ireland against parties like X. And we have the contractual restrictions that the platforms impose in their own terms of service, right? So there's already a lot there uh to take into consideration. A lot of it though, like as I mentioned, doesn't really appear to be enforced robustly. And that brings me to my second point because I think the reason these aren't being enforced robustly. Well, there might be several, but an important one is that there doesn't seem to be a clear solution to the problem of age assurance. That is to say, the technologies or the techniques through which platforms try to determine the user's age are faulty. Um, and I think as long as that continues to be the case, it's also difficult for regulators to really, you know, go very hard on fines or other demands since I don't think the regulators necessarily have the answers there either. Uh, now in the in the call today, we can get into the different uh, strategies here. So, Australia is prioritizing age estimation whereas the EU seems to be more interested in age verification. So there are different approaches here but fundamentally these are all um costly to privacy without being uh necessarily effective without being robust. Fundamentally users can still circumvent them with the help of an adult or by the use of VPNs. So they're talking about imposing pretty major costs on users including privacy risks without ever really being able to guarantee efficacy. And it's for these reasons that this age assurance continues to be a fundamental problem. And so even the people that might think that social media bans, you know, in theory could be a great thing, that maybe it would be better if 14, 15 year olds weren't on social media, if you look at the if you're familiar with the technical problems of age assurance, you start to be a lot more cautious about how much priority they should take. Where does that leave us politically? I I I' I've found Jessica's comments interesting because they seem to imply that you have been accused, Jessica, by people of not taking children's concern seriously, right? which I don't think is the case but that is a risk you run right we I don't think anyone right now wants to be the person saying well don't bother because there's clearly a lot of discontent and a lot of political momentum behind this topic and valid concerns I think too uh I think we see the broadly the response being amongst experts and advocates to try to take that momentum and move it from the kind of fraught and likely ineffective area of age restrictions to more universal reforms right things that tamp down on the business model of the platforms focusing on the addictive design of the algorithms, things like infinite scroll and autoplay. And that's a move you already see also in the expert report of of the Thunderline expert panel as well as as well as in various other advocates statements. So I think that's one of the main responses we see. Uh, one thing I would like to add to that is to pose a question which we also posed to the the Dutch government is, uh, if we're realistic about not being able to enforce, is there still a role for having a minimum age law reform as a statement, right, as a form of communication, a signal that can also be taken by parents, by teachers, by other people that are trying to engage with with minors much more directly. Uh, and something that might legitimize some of their actions, too. like as soon as we drop the demand to have this fully enforced, can we find a way of of bringing that into law without losing sight of the more fundamental reforms that might be necessary too, right? Uh so that's kind of a passion question I'd like to pose to the group as well. Um you know, why not both? Why not do the reform and the prohibition together? Uh if we can get past this idea of of a perfectly enforced uh verified law. Uh so those are my opening remarks. I'm very uh curious to hear others perspectives. looking forward. >> Thank you so much. Yeah, we're still collecting questions in the chat. I see that there is already one comment, but I'd like to um start with one question you implicitly both have already answered. So, why are there at the moment so many national governments introducing their sort of own legislation to protect miners online? Was there a specific event? Is it these cases Jessica you mentioned where you know young people took their lives um because of uh digital violence um or is it is it that um safeguards in place are seen as in adequat and maybe also to towards petty what safeguards does the digital services act for example have in terms of for example these so-called systemic risks uh if we think about age verification but look at what is already there and how to enforce that maybe who would like to start >> I can jump in on the first two questions I think there's two things why this is happening now I think it has been building up for a few years already it's there's no one event that triggered uh all this I think it's the fact that it's more and more mediatized as well uh we have more and more evidence as well of the harms caused by social media exposure or um you know continuous use or misuse sometimes. Um and it's true that some of the most gruesome cases um have contributed to raising awareness around the issue which is which is a good thing in itself. Um and it's I would say it really depends on the countries. I can especially think I I can especially talk for friends because that's the the debate I've been following more closely but in here um for instance I know that some child protection organizations have been really strong on advocacy at the highest level of government um and so it it has also become a personal matter for the president uh to to bring this age of majority forward there's been discussion around these since uh 2015 15 I think. So we we have a previous law already that in fact is was already passed but it's not implemented because it was deemed contrary to EU law. So in in France at least we we've been wanting to introduce a law with a social media ban for for quite some time already. Um and as to the EU safeguards that we have are they deemed inappropriate? Um I think it's not that it's more than politicians may may not be aware that they exist or they that they prevail over what we might come up with at national level. That's one thing. And also, it did take some time for the TSA, you know, to to be brought to full speed. And I've sometimes heard some elected officials, including some members of the European Parliament, saying that it took too much time for the commission to launch the investigations that it's, you know, it's not going fast enough. But I would say that at least it's it's it's doing its job. Um I I don't know what Patty thinks he can he can afterwards but um there are a certain number of you know investigations ongoing against Meta, against Snap, against some pornographic platforms. Um we have to see what it will uh you know um lead to. Uh but I I I would yeah I would say that for once the the safeguards seem to be working. It it did take take some time to to to get there because of course the commission had to hire you know a lot of experts for this and it did take some time but I think the argument that it takes time shouldn't be used to say we need you know it's not a reason to add yet an additional level of legislation to to me it makes no sense. Uh it's it's often presented like this, but I I don't see how adding yet another layer would make things faster, but um yeah, I might be missing something. >> Yeah. Um on the first question, why now? Uh I agree with Jessica like there doesn't seem to be one clear like incident really that drives everything. Um and it's always good to keep in mind the historical perspective that these kind of questions of age uh you know restrictions if not for social media in particular have been kind of a feature of internet policy since almost the very start right since the 1990s major Supreme Court litigation in the US in these topics too. So it is a topic that kind of recurs every now and then. uh you know if not though an incident I think broader so societal awareness of of the harms that children face and I think as many people have suggested also that parents face you know these addiction issues which often we might be feeling most intensely ourselves but to some extent might be projecting onto the youth as well these dissatisfactions are driving uh the debate uh I'd add that there definitely seems to be at play you know what legal scholars have described as like an availability cascade which is a fancy term to say that you know, once a policy uh uh props up in one jurisdiction, it often cascades into other ones. You know, almost like a meme or something that goes viral. It's something that clearly is able to condense a lot of these more nuance debates about child protection into something that's really uh visible. It becomes attractive for politicians. It becomes interesting for journalists, etc. And so, it is done the work of crystallizing a lot of the debate. And I think that brings me also to the second question. Um you know looking at the DSA enforcement uh I think it's interesting and of course probably not a coincidence that uh enforcement is really ramping up in this same period as we're seeing all these proposals come from member states etc. And this is classically what in political science you would call a flanking effect, right? It's actually that sometimes by people demanding maybe less reasonable or more radical or extreme versions of a of a of a reform, you actually force the mainstream to kind of assert its own position more more seriously. Uh so, you know, in some ways, again, the people that are proposing the med social media bans and the people proposing other child protection reforms, they seem like they're at odds with each other, but in many ways they're actually really benefiting from each other. You know, it's it's actually due to this debate that now hopefully also through the Fonderland report and other uh mechanisms, broader questions of safe design are being put on the agenda as well and the commission is being forced to prove that they're able to do something under the DSA. Um the steps they are taking, I think, are promising, right? They're demanding age verification for pornography platforms. They're looking at uh addictive design and other areas of of child protection and user protection more broadly. Uh I I will note that this uh a lot of this um still you know needs to be tested in court because the the frameworks we're talking about here systemic risk frameworks child protection framework are extremely broad risk based analyses and the commission has created very detailed uh child protection guidelines as well but these are do not have the force of law and it it's I you know there's nothing I would point to that seems impossible to me but broadly speaking you know the court will have the final say and very likely many of these things will be litigate ated too and only once that has been successful and will will I be really comfortable in saying that this approach is is sufficient definitely the commission has very high burdens of proof in the sense that it's all this risk based approach which suggests to me they cannot demand a single policy from every service they have like a burden of proof to show like for every service that the specific risks apply it strikes me and this is why we're seeing in the Vanderline report something that we also suggested in our report to the ministry consider like a reversal of the burden of proof proof. So it's not every time the commission that has to establish this service is risky enough that we want to make these demands, but to you know put the shoe in the other foot and say the platform needs to demonstrate first why they think they're they're safe for children or or for other applications. Um I'm blanking on the third question now, but I I did see a comment in the chat about Australia. Um I think that's just uh terminological confusion. When I say age estimation, I mean it in the sense of the um the commission's guidelines and they what you're referring to as age inference includes what of the commission would call age estimation that is to say you know the behavioral profiling approaches as well as uh facial scanning etc. So it's it's a broader term uh and maybe the terminology is slightly different in Australia but so thanks for that clarification though. Um yeah I think I'll leave it there for now. Yeah, maybe we could stick to that topic of Australia because not probably not everyone um uh knows the example of Australia social media ban in detail. So maybe you could just give a few words on what does the Australian ban entail? And have there already been assessments about the effectiveness of that ban? Is there something we could learn from Australia from that point? Sorry. Would you like me to speak? >> Yeah. Great. Um, very brief. >> Of course, you can also you can also hop on and say something. Please. >> No. No. So, very briefly, I mean the requirements in the reasonable steps guidance is that you cannot just use um self declaration alone. So the platforms have interpreted that to allow them to use self declaration plus what you might call inference or huristics or in other words monitoring user activity and then trying to spot people who are under 16. Uh that has clearly not worked because various surveys suggest somewhere between 60 and 80% of the children who should have been removed have not been removed from those platforms including the official regulators survey. So um but the battle there is really around whether the the guidance or the law actually it's really the law um was tight enough because it just says you've got to take reasonable steps. So you're going to spend several years in court now arguing was it reasonable to do it at that very low level. Um the the regulator is seeking more powers to be able to access paperwork from uh the uh platforms and the age verification providers involved so that they can see what the settings were. So did you add a three-year buffer for a facial age estimation which would make it robust or did you just say do they look over 16 or not in which case estimation is never going to be effective at 16. So um so I think the main lesson to be learned is to write your regulation very tightly. Uh and frankly I think you have to audit and certify the systems that are implementing the checks um beforehand so you know they've been configured in such a way that they will be effective. Thank you, Ian. Anything to add from the panel? >> Yeah, I might add. Uh, yeah, thanks. That's that's very interesting perspective. It's um you see in the Australian case, um, basically there's, you know, what they call an information forcing problem, right? You're forcing the platforms to like uncover information which is not in their interest. you know, it could lead to liabilities depending on how you enforce, but it also is not in their interest basically to remove these users, which you know, internal documents have shown that they're actively trying to recruit twins, etc. Um, so how do you force a platform to to disclose this? You know, there is there are indications that platforms have a pretty good estimate of what what their users ages are for marketing purposes, etc. But, you know, if then auditing, etc. ramps up, you actually create an incentive for them not to do that kind of research anymore. So fundamentally it's it's going to be very hard to get platforms to that point. Um so that's kind of a problem I see. Another thing I'd add about the Australian case is that um there was interesting uh data coming out of the e safety commissioner themselves. They did run one of their own surveys amongst parents um which showed like many of the independent surveys you know that the compliance rate is uh you know less around 30% or maybe even even less than that. What I found very interesting is that when you look at the deactiv account deactivations, the cases where they did actually kind of uh force a change. Uh even there the platforms play a relatively minimal role. Just about 50% of the deactivations were actually initiated by the platform i.e. you know they they caught the user through these age assurance techniques. Um the other half were 25% the user themselves and 25% the parents. Uh so at least half of the effect we've seen isn't even due to the age assurance at all. due to what I'm kind of interested in this more symbolic effect like the norm generating effect perhaps of parents seeing this law maybe thinking this is time to put an end to things let's say um so you know even there that 30% kind of uh underrates um how how how effective the or sorry overrates how effective the the platform's age assurance is >> well when we stay a few more seconds for the legal question. Then we have uh in the chat we have one question which is uh again about age assurance and uh there's one question Patty that says how do you view the European Union age verification blueprint which seems to be the least intrusive approach so far. Um what do you think about it? >> So for the others in the call and and I'm also curious to hear what Jessica thinks about this. Um the EU has been working on this what they call white label solution a kind of uh uh it's it's a blueprint let's say for for apps that can be developed at member state level um that can uh perform age verification and here it's not about guessing users age due to their behavioral patterns but through some kind of credentiing some national authority would uh verify your age and then and this would be key the idea is that you have a a zero knowledge proof in which the credentiing authority doesn't know what services you're using and the service doesn't know what credentials you're using. They simply know that you are yes or no above the age or not. And this is in theory a highly privacy preserving technique. Um uh that being said many experts continue to see risks here and those are several right first of context it's important to keep in mind that if you go this route in theory not just the children of course but everyone would have to install an app such as this. This is also something that the the French constitutional court I think uh notes in their objections to the French proposal. Um there are risks in the implementation that there might be vulnerabilities right that unexpectedly there might be compromises to the security of an app like this. Uh there are risks of excluding certain groups who might not have the necessary documentation or the digital literary skills to make use of of these services. Um and fundamentally there are concerns about you know function creep that once you create an infrastructure like this becomes much easier for other kind of authorities to demand also that they're integrated with this that you pro prove your your identity in other ways. Um broadly speaking you know it's also doesn't appear to be although pilot programs are running I've not been able to learn much about how those pilots are proceeding but this is still like in a in a very much in a test phase and un unproven in its efficacy. So uh like in theory you can reach a high level of privacy with this but there continues to be serious concerns about at the uh the practicality of it. Jessica coming back to the groups were talking about and about miners I mean we we're often talking about miners without having them at the table. That would be something I would like to discuss later on with you as well. But what risk do miners really face online? And is there any specific to the risks miners face? And how does does this um relate to the age verification at let's say 15 or 16? So where does this age from when on you know responsible and and and brave enough to uh to be online uh come in? So could you tell us a bit more about how legislation thinks about miners? >> Yeah. Uh well it's it usually comes from the fact that um these harms that I've mentioned in the introductory remarks like you know um grooming or being addictive to some features and spending too much time online to the extent where you're exposed to some um harmful content and you find yourself in in rabbit holes and you cannot get out of it. Um it does concern children but it concerns in fact everyone. Um but the the age limit comes from the fact that children are deemed to be more vulnerable and rightfully so than adults because well for multiple reasons because their brains um are not fully formed yet. So they lack the capacity to really question their use and to understand you know the whole industry behind and how social media works. Uh but that's you know that's also true of many adults right? Um, and I don't know if you've done the test yourself or if you're on social media yourselves, uh, but it it it it is addictive to us as well. Um, we we might have the capacity to, you know, to to see when we are exposed to some uh problematic content. Uh, but it's still hard to get away from it. Um, and I would just like to mention um a scene in a documentary um about Modi Rose's uh case that I mentioned earlier. Um, somebody Modi Russell, sorry. um was a a teen who committed suicide in the in the UK um a few years ago and a documentary was made to you know document the case and explain the whole um attention economy behind uh behind the business models of of platforms and how they can you know um trap you inside some problematic content and expose you to more and more problematic content and one interesting thing I I found is that Molly's friends real friends uh testify I in in the documentary and they say, you know, we we as adults are still on Instagram and on many of the platforms and one of their say, I hate social media. I hate what you know, what happened, but we're still on it. So, you have adults who have lost a friend as a teen due to some social media exposure, you know, that led her to to think that the only possible way out was suicide. And still these people as adults cannot you know get out of it. Um so it it does concern everyone. I I see where um the the age limit it comes from and and why people might think it's a you know under a certain age you absolutely should not be exposed to such features and such content. It's legitimate. Uh but I think if we really want to get away from the whole age assurance challenges that Patty just mentioned, you know, you have some technological challenges, you have political legal challenges around it. One way to get out of this whole problem would be to address the issue for everyone and not just for children. And in fact, the guidelines from the European Commission that Patty also mentioned on article 28 that you know it's is quite comprehensive. It's more than 60 pages of guidance on the design of platforms or or on what features could be uh you know turned on and off based on different um settings or based on the risks. Um this actually is a very although it's not binding is a really good benchmark as to how the platforms could comply with article 28 of the DSA. Um and one possibility would be to make these guidelines binding for instance and I don't know if that's something that's envisioned at EU level but that would be a possibility to do it either at EU level or at member state level um as well because of course the what's problematic is that the at the national level you cannot put obligations on platforms that go further than that what the DSA already you know um plans But the guidelines are not binding. So to me, at least that's my interpretation. If a member state was to say the guidelines from the commission, we make it binding under national law and platforms have to respect these guidelines to comp, you know, comply with the GSA in France, in Germany, anywhere else. I I think that's that would be actually one possible way to escape the whole you know age age verification age um um debate. >> Yeah, Alfreda also mentioned that article within the chat um just a bit longer sticking with the minors and what alternatives to age bands are there? I mean you talked about these guidelines now but as organization I mean you're very much behind protecting minors online and there's of course also this more of you know addressing societal problems behind it because as you both said um sometimes legislation comes as easy fix and it comes symbolic and we have this you know sort of um technological fixes for obviously technological problems addictive design infant discroll and so on and so on, but also for societal problems, I'd say in terms of violence, harassment, and hate speech. Um what other alternatives were there to strengthen minors? Um to to you know cope all of what they see online in terms of literacy uh in terms of um more strength in terms of uh acting towards violence or resisting violence. Uh maybe to continue on on on Jessica's comments there because I think they're also going that direction like there is quite an extensive tool under article 28. uh you know for those who haven't uh those guidelines really are interesting reading because they're long right and they start with age requirements and assurance but then they continue for page after page after page of of like design principles like safe defaults things like you know uh adults not being able to message miners uh you know outside of their network things you can do with recommendations you know the list goes on and on and a lot of interesting ideas are in there um and I think those should also be point of interest not just for members states, but also in upcoming EU reforms, right? um to the extent that these guidelines are maybe not binding or maybe they give discretion depending on what kind of platform you are uh you know maybe it's time for the EU to be a bit braver and say we're just going to ban infinite scroll and we're going to ban autoplay or maybe we're going to have it as a presumption of illegality unless you can demonstrate why it's necessary for your service you know but to just rather than having this kind of sometimes a bit wishy-washy risk based approach with which as I said has these high uh burdens of proof for the regulator to really start um being a bit firmer in the in those areas. Um so that that's one direction. Another I'd like to add uh if if we could that's like the safe design area. The other is I think um in the since the last time we had an age restriction debate, you know, maybe 15 years ago, um the market has really developed quite an impressive array of device-based parental controls and standards. So on all the major operating systems and browsers, so whether you're on an iPhone or a Chromebook etc. there are pretty advanced uh parental control tools for parents to limit what services you use or to signal through APIs your the age of the user to screen certain content even you know there's quite a lot you can do. Um and this is where you know I also hope that like the the norms that are generated through this process might start to like we've seen in Australia you know like 15 20% of parents you know in this in this survey taking that step and saying you know let's let's restrict users um our kids uh activities that's something that actually be done quite reliably if you want to do it through the device based things and these are therefore much less restrictive on user privacy you don't force everyone to install apps etc but you you know the solution close to the problem let's say um of course one of the major risks there is a lack of knowledge and therefore inequality results right that you know let's say parents who would be participating in a call like this would be aware and and and capable of using these systems but uh people that you know are less privileged might not and I think the government has a very important role to play there in supporting people and that I think can go much farther and much more concrete it can be than uh mere awareness raising but you have institutions like schools that are much closer to parents and kids which could you know in the parent teacher meetings the teacher could help you install you know install this on your phone or you know um change the parameters or you know that they're much more hands-on support which lawyers and certainly the EU was not used to doing but other areas of government which are closer to the child and closer to the parent can support uh with and as I said the solutions really the technically uh are there uh for the using and it's a question of inequality and and and access. Yeah, >> to maybe complement what P just said, there there are some studies that indeed show that there is a certain number of parental control tools that have been developed in the last years, but they tend not to be used. And so I I fully agree that raising digital literacy and awareness at at national and EU level um should definitely be part of the equation because we we tend to focus on on law and what it can do. Uh but this is a holistic problem and we need to to address it uh you know sorry for what it is which is um a public health issue in the end. Um so everybody should be involved the government parents as well. Um I've heard sometimes in debate that we shouldn't shame parents and it's it's not about shaming parents. It's just giving giving them back control over what their their kids do online and you know telling them that maybe um they should be paying more attention because they might not be aware of what their kids are exposed to. This is also something that's been shown in in many studies for instance by Amnesty Tech um that show the the kind of problematic content that kids are exposed to and the testimonies of parents who say I had no idea that they could find such content online. So I agree with Patty. We shouldn't underestimate the power of raising awareness. Um and for this this is a question that Patty raised at the beginning. I'm I'm a bit conflicted with um sorry with the like using law to as um as a symbol to make people understand that you know it's not okay to be on social media under a certain age or they they should be careful or you know um because laws in the end are made to be enforced and if we use law to pass messages it's I'm a bit conflicted uh about this this option. Um I I see the merits. Um but I I'm just wondering if a you know national big awareness campaign raising um a awareness raising campaign wouldn't be more appropriate. Uh and it would you know it wouldn't be a oneshot thing and the problem is solved of course. Um but yeah, I I'm a bit conflicted about using law to to to communicate if if I put it simply and I'm not saying that's what you you advocate for. >> Yeah, of course the irony in this debate is that in some sense we already have this law. No. So if we look at for instance the GDPR standards for parental consent in almost in most member states it's 16, some it's 13, but certainly it's not being complied with basically anywhere you know. So, you know, in that sense, the awareness campaign makes a lot of sense even if you don't have the law yet. Uh, for sure. >> Well, actually, that that that fits pretty good to the question we have in the in the chat. Should we treat social media more like smoking or harmful products? I mean, should we now know give out batches saying social media can be deadly? Is there sort of awareness raising you would like to see? Is there Yeah, I mean any similar problems being addressed um that could use as or could be used as a blueprint for this social media topic. >> The litigation in the US is often mentioned as you know the big tobacco moment, right? So I mean the analogy is certainly there. Um and you know like all analogies you can pull it in different directions and see what fits and what doesn't. One of the obvious differences to me is that uh unlike um tobacco uh social media does have plausible and tangible benefits for for the minors as well, right? And you know in the studies you see actually that uh the the harm um that um users experience really is concentrated statistically in the really excessive camp. the guys using uh social media for six plus hours per day. That's statistically where almost all of the harms are. And actually the moderate users on average benefit from social media. They they have better outcomes than those who don't use it at all. So, you know, um also in terms of fundamental rights, right, you know, access to political participation, freedom of expression, etc. are things that can plausibly be associated with social media. you know the the degree the degree to which you value that is still open for debate but that I think already makes it a different discussion than you're having with let's say tobacco uh on the analogies I'll also add you know viney in a recent statement said I think it might even be in the report I'm trying to remember but uh there was a statement at a high level from the EU which said you know we don't expect uh car manu parents to install uh airbags in your car we expect the car manufacturer to do that right so that that's one analogy they use but it occurred to me yeah we don't expect the car manufacturer to verify your age, right? We expect the parents to stop their kids from climbing behind the wheel. So, I thought it was an interesting example of one of these, you know, uh polyvalent uh analogies. >> I have one last question and then we'll see what comes out in the chat. I see there's another question from Yanik. um whether you see a difference between the functionalities of platforms for example that are video based. Um are there are those more easy to engage in enforcement or is there yeah a differentiation and between what sort of platform you'll be looking at you say there is a difference >> I would say that in fact social media has almost all become video based >> you know there has been this pivot to video for a few years now and now it's all reals too, right? So the whole market has moved in that direction. Um you know potentially you could try to draw draw those distinctions under the riskbased framework but by and large you know they're all doing video as a main thing nowadays anyway. Uh so in practice that might not be the most relevant distinction. Uh there there's something I haven't yet read up on yet, but legally there is a distinction of the video platform or the video sharing uh uh platform which is the definition used for the audiovisisual media services directive which has slightly different competences and scopes than the DSA and there's overlap here right um and I heard but this is something that's not verified so I shouldn't speak about in too much detail that some member states are exploring the possibility of of writing laws that are actually social media bans but they're targeted at video sharing platforms so that they can fall within the AVMSD framework which is legally beneficial perhaps in some ways. Uh and the theory there is exactly this pivot to video. It's like well we we we write a law for video sharing platforms but in effect that's going to capture all the social media anyway, right? So the they're the really the ven diagram is a circle >> and something that's also put forward in the in the report of the you know the special panel advising or vonda is that we should be speaking about social media plus and not just social media because it's you know as Patty said also on video games and what we're not talking about here also is messaging systems. I don't want to open the whole um you know communications and cam um regulation topic um but if one of the reasons why I think regulation alone cannot you know cannot be enough is because if you regulate some spaces or some features you know predators and and and and other bad um influences will find a way around it and you know it's already happening. you see grooming on some mainstream platforms and then people take kids to you know some more private or under the radar um uh platforms and that's you know um how it it it the the harms perpetuate um so there's that's another limit I see um to the current regulations that we are considering um although we we we we may you know argue that if 50% of the kids are protected It's still better than what it is today. But my fear is that we would displace the problem as well. Just like you displace it if you if you put an age limit, the homes have just happened later. Some people might argue that it's less serious or it's, you know, it's more okay if people are exposed to some content when they are 17 than when they are 15. Um but yeah that's a problem we've seen in all the yeah for many years in all the debates around content moderation. If you regulate some spaces some homes are displaced to some other places that will never be regulated. Um so yeah I I just wanted to to raise that as well. >> Thank you. I mean from time to time probably um both of you will be talking to miners about that topic as well and I'm pretty interested into how they see the problem. I mean I'm also I also work at the Hansto Institute uh where we do a whole lot of research around minors on social media and we try to talking to miners about what they think are the benefits of social media and what are the pitfalls and I have clear opinion about that but what I see in legislation efforts which goes actually for many many groups marginalized marginalized groups especially is that they don't have uh Jessica you said that where you sit you don't have a seat at the table Right. So um uh who's talking to those that are in the end really affected by such sort of legislation especially in terms of Petty you mentioned that matters of fundamental rights and so on. Um what would you say how should shouldn't we go forward and include minors more serious into the discussions also the societal discussion but also maybe uh in the legislation processes if I can jump in on that um at least for academic institutions and think tanks like us it's quite hard to engage with minors directly because you need to have some very strict policies in place around privacy and um consent and you have to have parental consent. So it's a very costly and complex uh process that only big organizations can afford to to put in place. So for instance for our research at interface we've been wanting to organize focus groups with minors for instance and for that we would need to partner with other organizations but there are very few organizations that can actually do that. So for now for you know even us we haven't managed to to do that. So for instance, we are running a study at the moment on AI and miners and their use of uh AI companions which will be quantitative data you know from surveys that have been sent to minors but then we would love to have more qualitative discussions with them to complement this data but it's until now it's proven very difficult to to do that but I think bigger organizations or at least institutions like the European Commission has definitely more means than us uh to conduct this kind of um of work and I think they have included some panels and some minors in in the special panel as well but it's yeah there's always a limit to representativity and you might involve four or five minors of even of different ages and they might not represent um you know most of the minors who are actually concerned. So it's quite tricky. Yeah, I think that that was a great answer and I'll just add that you know for me being moving into this space over the last semester it was interesting to see like this is quite particular to this domain Dutch government and the EU do have quite some procedures in place to to consult children in various ways although like Jessica says it is quite cumbersome to all the like the the privacy concerns etc involved but it is it is interesting for me to see that that is something that is taken seriously um at various steps and of course there's lots of survey research um one I will point to is there is also survey research saying you know I think I won't speak to perceptions of bans specifically um because I don't have those numbers ready at the moment but what is interesting is that many children themselves report that they're unhappy with the amount of time they spend on social media and that doesn't necessarily justify a ban but it does speak to I think a feeling that we all often share of not having control about how much time we spend on social media so so these are a very important singles to keep into take into account I Thank you so much to both of you for the very very interesting discussion, for the brilliant answers. Thanks to our audience for all of those interesting questions. Um yeah, thank you. Have a good day. Uh we'll be coming up with another learning call, I believe, within the DSA research network with another interesting topic. Um yeah, we stay very curious about how this uh goes on with the legislation on social media. Then thanks Patty, thanks Jessica. Um thanks so much for being here. Thank you all for your time. Have a good day. >> Thank you. Have a good day. >> Thanks everyone. Take care. >> Bye. >> Thank you.